Nathan Newman

DC Wonks Undermine Anti-Wal-Mart Campaign

When Wal-Mart's trucks break down, no one expects the government
to pay to repair them. Wal-Mart pays to fix them and the costs are
included in the price of the goods they sell.

Yet some moderate Democrats apparently think that when workers get
sick, companies don't have the responsibility to "repair" their
workers. The new talking points from some in think-tank Washington is
that it's not Wal-Mart's responsibility to take care of sick workers.
Take this little excerpt from a recent New York Times article:

"The controversy over Wal-Mart's benefits may mask what some
experts see as an unraveling of the employer-based system of health
coverage. 'These are indications of the gaps in the health care
system that are exposed by Wal-Mart,' said Len Nichols, a health
economist at the New America Foundation, an independent public policy
group in Washington. 'You can't blame Wal-Mart.'"

So it's nice to know that when we on the labor left mobilizing
against Wal-Mart feel the knife in our back, we know who put it
there.

But what's odd is that this is the same kind of coterie of
"moderate free trade" Democrats who usually tell workers that you
must allow the marketplace to set the price of products, workers'
jobs be damned (not theirs, of course). But when it comes to
including the market costs of health care for workers within the
goods sold by corporate America, that's the point where the D.C. free
trade crowd suddenly argue for artificially lowering the costs of
goods to benefit corporate profits.

So why not have taxpayers subsidize machine repair for
corporations? Or let corporations pollute the environment at will and
leave it to the taxpayers to clean up the toxic spills? Why do
corporations get a free pass in responsibility for healthcare costs,
but not the other social costs like pollution -- "externalities" in
wonk speak -- that business inflicts on society?

Now, there is a pragmatic argument to relieve companies of that
responsibility for healthcare costs to gain an advantage in global
trade, but that's just a variant on a whole range of trade subsidies
that I thought the free trade crowd was against.

On basic economics, this new talking point from the D.C. wonks is
nonsensical and a bit hypocritical from folks who seem to be
heartless about manufacturing workers losing their jobs to "free
trade," but awfully compassionate about the burdens on corporate
profits from healthcare costs due to that same international
competition.

In the abstract, I'd love to have single-payer health care, as
well as fair trade, and worker-owned companies for that matter. But
at the moment, with a GOP filibuster sitting there to block the
creation of single-payer government-run health plan, this DC wonk
strategy of attacking the employer-based healthcare system is
ridiculous, especially the talking point that Wal-Mart is not a bad
actor just because they provide less health care to their employees
than other large employers.

Strategically, the moderate D.C. wonks are rhetorically screwing
over the labor unions and other groups that have spent the last few
years attacking Wal-Mart to force the company to provide better
health care. Some of that pressure led to Wal-Mart increasing its
health-care coverage and other benefits as it feels the pressure from
union organizing drives.

And on the legislative front, right now the broadest and currently
most successful campaign for expanding health care for Americans is
based on strengthening the employer-based health-care system by
requiring employers not providing health care for their employees to
do so. New York City and Suffolk County, N.Y., just passed laws
requiring large retailers like Wal-Mart to provide health care to
their employees -- and Maryland passed a similar law through their
legislature, only to see their GOP governor veto it.

And what was the rhetorical strategy used to get those laws
passed? Arguing that companies have a responsibility to provide
health care for their employees. See the following language used in
flyer from the campaign that successfully enacted the New York City
Health Care Security Act:

"This New York City law would help responsible businesses to
continue offering health care and expand access to health care for
tens of thousands of working New Yorkers. The new law would level the
playing field for businesses. Many responsible business owners are
being hurt by unfair competition from owners who recklessly cut
health benefits to lower their costs.

"Irresponsible employers who refuse to provide health care --
despite the fact that their competitors are doing so -- are shifting
to taxpayers the cost of caring for their workers.

"Responsible business owners support this bill because it helps
them continue providing health care for their employees without
worrying about being hurt by competitors that cut employee benefits
in order to lower costs."

This is the message progressives are trying to deliver at the
grass roots.

Obviously, D.C. wonks like the New America Foundation have the
free-speech right to say anything they want, but when groups like
that deliberately promote rhetoric that undermines current
progressive organizing efforts, it's clear that they can't be trusted
as allies by grassroots organizations.

Here's the difference between conservatives and a lot of D.C.
liberal intellectuals: Conservatives are actually disciplined in
using the privileges they have in think tanks to support the
conservative movement out in the field. But much of the D.C. liberal
policy-wonk crowd -- whether supporting free trade or the new talking
point that Wal-Mart has no responsibility to provide health care --
seem to not give a damn if they are writing Wal-Mart's campaign
ads.

Believe me, Wal-Mart will happily quote the New America Foundation
to bolster their case on why New York City or various state
governments shouldn't be forcing them to provide health care to their
employees. And they will turn around and lobby against any universal
health plan that the D.C. crowd promotes.

The only way Wal-Mart won't lobby against a broader health plan is
if the company has already been forced to provide health care for
their employees. New York City and Suffolk County have already done
this in their jurisdictions, and the more states follow suit, the
less the Wal-Marts of the world will fight more universal health care
solutions.

But with Wal-Mart employees showing up at emergency rooms with
sick children whose parents had been unable to afford care until
their medical problems became critical, it's just an obscenity to
excuse Wal-Mart, one of the richest corporations on earth, for its
failure to provide health care to its employees.

Nathan Newman is director of Agenda for Justice
(agendaforjustice.org), an organization that supports progressive
policy campaigns, and is a longtime union and community activist.
Email nathan@nathannewman.org or see www.nathanewman.org.